Boss 101, the game & the story!

Boss 101 – the story about a boy, his jetpack and MILLIONS of randomly generated bosses.
Join Max and S.T.E.V.E. as they adventure across the galaxy battling the baddies and bringing home the ice cream. Boss 101 is an arcade shooter and much more! We have procedurally generated levels, bosses and gameplay. On top of that we’re bringing you as much humor and entertainment as possible while you play.

So yep, it’s a shooter at it’s core and at the risk of using “marketing-speak” we like to think it’s a little more than that since it’s got a story driving it forward. That’s right, we said it. It’s not JUST blasting robo baddies and rolling onto the next level. There is real human drama here folks. For one, did you know this whole adventure is triggered when your brother makes a simple (for him) birthday request?

Check out the screens below to get an idea!

Command Center Main Room

First off though – let’s check out the work on the Command Center main room – YOUR main room in the game!

We’ve been adding ambient touches to the room. This is your first stop in the game and where you hang out with Max and Steve. This week we updated the window with animations and gave Max and Steve a gloss pass.

Fist Cannon – YEAH BUDDY!

Some screenshots which explain the kinds of bosses you will be fighting (and what you might fight them with)!

Bow in action

Some Croco-spider Boss getting wasted!

These were all made in the MAGICAL Make A Boss Creator that YOU CONTROL. The thing here is you are in charge not only of outfitting yourself but you get to roll YOUR OWN BOSS! That’s right, each level and each boss is basically designed by you with the magical MAKE-A-BOSS generator (see image):

From that machine you end up with this kind of stuff:

Say you were to roll a COMPLETE set for the kitty boss he would look like this!
And when you need some fashion help and stylish upgrades we have HATS!!
Here’s just ONE of the SWEET hats you can purchase and bring into battle! Calibretto from Battlechasers!

Check out a FEW of the sweet boomsticks available to you during the game. You can upgrade fire power and craft special weapons with rare materials.

Water Levels!!! YES!!!

STEVE and Max talk about some of the new features rolling into the game RIGHT NOW. Top of that list is WATER LEVELS! You heard it here first. You will take to the skies over a beautiful ocean and soar around kicking up jets of water as you blast your way into the robo-history books. Check out the the images and their animated take below.

Crazy asteroids field action. You gotta be careful out there, the bosses ain’t playing around! Luke and the gang didn’t have it this hard running from the Empire.

Take a break and fly a kite in Boss 101. Chat it up with your buddy as you soak in the rays. Maybe you’ll learn something.

The Robo-Dragonfly bum-rush!

You might end up in a warp tunnel blasting samurai swords!

Development Notes: Boss Testing

As you know we have a lot of bosses and boss parts. To test things like animations, how well they match each other and general firing patterns we created a boss testing room where we can trigger all that stuff. In it we can mix and match parts as well as trigger various animations. Some examples:

We can randomly jumble parts together to check how various thing match. We can also select any part (like the head or the main weapon) and cycle through all the variations.

When it’s in the game we start playtesting and seeing how it feels along with other boss combos, player weapons and basically everything we can think of. I have to say it’s pretty fun to watch something come online the first time and just blast away at it. There’s nothing like horribly imbalanced weapons to get the blood flowing!

Boss 101 – Making the Dog Boss Bark

We start with a basic discussion about what a boss will act like, how he will behave. Things like movement, weapons and personality are discussed and planned out. Of course it all needs to work within the games framework of interlocking parts.

Let’s look at the Dog Boss – here is a look at the first pass of the dog’s main weapon planning diagram. We layout the way things work with some sketches and notes.

From there it gets a working first pass… like so…

Arm Weapon Setup in Boss 101

Then you have things like the arm weapons… the little one on the shark boss right here…

Those notes became this!

Pretty dope right?! That’s the kind of fun we have all day!

Struggle Time!

So we added in the initial art for the struggle arrow. There are bosses who can hold you in place while you get pummeled. As much as we hate to see you lose control there is an argument to be made for giving the bosses a fair chance. You have STEVE after all and his wit can cut deeper than a sword. HAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

At any rate – in this initial pass we are testing out the mechanic and they are pretty nice. You can off course – decrease the trapped time but wiggling your stick. Basically – don’t get caught in the ice beams!

We’ll be making an announcement as to the exact day soon! Right now we are ensuring the game is tuned right and plays well before we finalize our dates. We want you to love the game when you play it so we are taking the time to create something amazing.

@disqus_qVtjYlAg41:disqus – Check out the latest update on the front page for pricing info and release dates. I think you will be pretty happy with where things are at. We have worked to bring you the best deal while still allowing us to continue to make games. THANK YOU!